3d print your pcbs!

[markeebee]

Check it!

http://www.cartesianco.com

I'm DEFINITELY buying, but maybe I'll wait a few months to see if it works as well as they claim, and also to see if the price drops once the early-adopter demand dies down.

Apologies if this is old news, but a quick forum search didn't turn anything up.

[alparent]

1600$ Holly crap!

Yet another cool but useless device for me as an effect builder.

[markeebee]

Yeah, it's expensive now, but so were the first ink jet printers. Give it a year or two,  I reckon you'll get a kit to build one for few hundred.

The price of 3d printer kits and components is falling VERY quickly, so watch this space. Maybe  

[armdnrdy]

Pretty cool but....someone needs to design one that drills the holes as well for through hole.

A 3D printer/CNC 

[Hemmel]

I had the same thought, however in this particular case I think they're aiming for printing on soft surfaces such as paper or cloth.
Components can easily pass through these surfaces, and moreover they seem to be using mostly surface mount devices.

That 3D printer/CNC idea... gave me goose bumps (the good ones). 

[armdnrdy]

I had the same thought, however in this particular case I think they're aiming for printing on soft surfaces such as paper or cloth.

In the video they showcase printing on soft surfaces for the obvious reason, (many more potential applications) but they do show printing on standard ridged circuit board type material.

You can't make that cool rave blinky bracelet with a ridged surface! 
It's funny to see what young engineers think is important to showcase!

[R.G.]

I'd settle for a reliable inkjet plotter that plotted resist ink on PCB stock. Back in the (computer) dark ages, HP flatbed plotters for letter sized sheets could be (ab)used to plot in lacquer on copper. Worked beautifully if you had the right refillable pen and cleaned the copper properly.

[Yes, I know about the modified inkjet stuff on Yahoo. ]

[markeebee]

Pretty cool but....someone needs to design one that drills the holes as well for through hole.

A 3D printer/CNC 

In one of the articles I read online, the developer of the machine talked about using the same chemicals in the printers "ink" as an adhesive. So instead of poking stuff through a hole and soldering it, you would just glue the components directly to the trace.

Which, come to think of it, is more of a game changer than the printer itself. A cheap, easily workable,  mechanically robust, conductive glue. Please.

[armdnrdy]

So.....if you make a through hole board (remember...some components are not available in SMD) instead of soldering, you would use a syringe to dab a spot of conductive glue from the pin or lead to the pad.

[Ice-9]

Fantastic idea and full of promise, but it is a long way away from making PCB's that will be robust in the long term. it looks great for making novelty wear like those bracelets and maybe T-shirts for stag nights and hen parties. I know tech moves very fast these days so when I say it is a long way from being useful in real pcb terms that could go from this to pro pcb within a year. Bring it on I say.

[Hemmel]

it looks great for making novelty wear like those bracelets and maybe T-shirts for stag nights and hen parties.

I would totally wear a goat T-shirt with bright LEDs in its eyes.

[armdnrdy]

I would totally wear a goat T-shirt with bright LEDs in its eyes.

Here you go.



This is what I usually wear for a night out on the town.
This shirt is a total chick magnet! 

[Hemmel]

WANT.
NEED.
MUST WEAR NOW !!!!

[haveyouseenhim]

One of these days I'll get your goat shirt back in the mail.

[IvIark]

I was looking at something similar a few months ago, but it was one of these kit 3D printers that could also become a small CNC by changing the tooling.  I loved the idea of getting PCB blanks and being able to etch the design straight into the copper but in the end I thought that the level it was at at that time would have been far too much messing about, using a variety of different software packages to perform the function, so I decided to leave it until the technology had caught up to the level I wanted from it, and importantly so had the ease of use.  I'll get one in a few years

[R.G.]

Now that I think about it, a really useful thing would be some way to travel a focused UV light pot on presensitized PCB stock.

[Mustachio]

I wonder about their conductive ink. The conductive ink pens I've tried for doing pcb repair are weird. The ink is supposed to be some type of silver/ceramic I believe. Once it was dry it wasn't very strong could chip it off with your finger pretty easy. Yeah it will work when the copper has been lifted but it isn't something to depend on like a stomp box that gets kicked around. At least with the pen/ink I tried.

I wonder how much their ink and substrate will be. And if the substrate will need to be special, like coated with something to accept the ink better. I don't think either of those will become cost effective.

Does it actually do xyz or just x and y ? Maybe It uses Z to change for different height of material.. 3D?

Like a few others said , I doesn't seem strong/robust enough to replace copper and solder at the moment.

That being said you can get plastic 3d printer add-ons for a cnc machine pretty cheap now a days if you wanted to add in a heat bed and extruder to an existing cnc machine. Then all you need is a pick and place and a solder wave table and a fancy name, So you can go on vacation and have all the machines make pedals for you! haha

At 1600 bucks you could get a pretty nice chinese cnc machine with a water cooled spindle and 3d printer add ons.

Don't get me wrong this is a great idea and the tech is just about there to make it worth while so here's to hoping for the best

[jubal81]

I get PCBs from OSHpark in less than 10 days now. Making PCBs is as easy as checking the mail.